Customer Reviews

AutoCAD 2000: No Experience Required

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I went through the first 6 chapters in a period of 2 1/2 days and I learned a great deal very quickly. He at times can be repetitive but his explanations will make you understand the concept the first time around. I'm usually not the type of person to comment on a book but I feel like I owe the author at least this. This book is definetly well worth the 25 bucks--more than that, really.

If you don't know squat about CAD, this book is, without a doubt, for you.

Pluses: A good self teaching book. With no previous Autocad experience I now feel confident that I can do basic 2-d drawings. The book got me to accomplish what I wanted, to learn basic Autocad, so basically a good recommendation. The pace was a contributator to confidence building.

Minuses: It could be written with a third to half less wordiness, the author drags out the instructions and basic Windows operations too much. I feel I should have been able to do the basic drawing in much less text.

Chapter 7 was very boring and took forever to get through with very little return for the time spent.

And the book only covers an single architectural design.

I would like to see other mechanical design example walk-throughs added with shorter text descriptions. More to-the-point.

Also it is difficult to find exactly where you learned something when you want to go back and refresh yourself, mainly because of the wordiness.

This book is amazing.. I did not know a thing about AutoCAD but in just 5 easy reading chapters (so far), I have put togeather a design for my house. Everything is explained step by step and the reason why it is done that way is also clear.

The book teaches the basics to the more complicated elevations, 3D drawing etc. It covers more than enough to get a good knowlage of AutoCAD.

NOTE : this book is based on architecture and not mechanical design. If you want to know how to draw house plans then this is the best book to buy.

I have been fighting my way through several books on auto cad. David Freys book has has been a real eye opener, made the learning process satisfying. I had a short course on R14, was lost and now I'am found. By skill level 3, You are and looking forward to more. For the beginner start with this one.

This is a good book but it is written for architects. I'm a mechanical engineer. Also, it basically has only one project that you progress through from beginning to end of book. I took a que from a previous reviewer and checked out "shrockpublishing.com" and their books worked better for me. (Exercise workbook for Beg. AutoCAD) Easy to follow, 30 separate lessons, includes many exercises and for all disciplines not just architecture. Plus I emailed the author with questions and she answered me.

This book is a great beginner, at the moment I am about a quarter of the way through the book and am finding it VERY easy to understand and he teaches through practice instead of just explaining each command. I was getting intimidated by all of the 1200-1500 page books i had seen and was glad to find this book which was exactily what i was looking for, a "true beginner's book" stop looking and buy you won't be sorry.

The author does a good job of squeezing in lots of techniques into the tutorials. If there was anything I wish that he had included, it's tips and tricks sections and a more robust section on 3d rendering. But the book is still worth 5 stars. I suspect that 3d rendering is really a subject all to itself and probably needs to be covered separately anyways. The only reason I suggest a tips and tricks section is that I feel that after using Autocad that there are nuances with the software that cannot be covered with tutorials, ie what-if scenarios. For instance, I commonly make objects in a layer that stay in that layer despite the fact that I move them to other layers. They refuse to even take on the color of the layer I move them to. Based upon the book's tutorials, this shouldn't be happening. Regardless, the book did what it was supposed to do: I now know Autocad and am already designing things with it.

If you liked this book you will also like "Exercise Workbook for Beginning AutoCAD 2000" and it's companion "Exercise Workbook for Advanced AutoCAD 2000". Visit the website "shrockpublishing.com" and check it out. I found these to be more step by step and not so much to read. The Advanced workbook is really good for guiding you through setting up your borders for professional use. It is also great for classroom instruction. Students basically teach themselves with these books. They are also great as reference manuals to refer back too commands quickly.

Most AutoCAD instructional books are very comprehensive. They attempt to cover all the facets of the program and to provide examples relevant to all the various professions that use the program. As a result, they are suitable for a six month course or as a reference tome, but excruciating for anyone trying to pick up AutoCad at home. This author focuses in on basic skills that are required in architectural drafting and cuts away the clutter that you can pick up later as you become more experienced. The training exercises are logically sequenced and techniques become effortlessly ingrained through repetition. This is simply the best work I've seen for getting an architect with limited CAD experience up and running.

This book is excellent for architects who want to learn Autocad 2000, and do not have prior experience, as it says. Even with experience it shows different and more efficient ways of drawing architectural drawings in AutoCAD, especially if one is mostly self taught; it shows a variety of commands and their functions through one example that is developed in detail through the book. Even basic things like how to draw a wall and elevations can seem daunting but the instructions go through all that very well. The book could have benefited with more bullet points and less verbiage and more examples. However, the book is very instructive and walks one through the steps very well.